Endless Running
by DarkestAphelion
Summary: [Dark. Angst. Oneshot.] Kaiba Seto is not as smart and driven as everyone thinks he is. And sometimes, it drives him insane.


**Summary:** [Dark. Angst. Oneshot.] Kaiba Seto is not as smart as everyone thinks he is. And sometimes, it drives him insane.

**Warning:** This is dark. Depressing. Very depressing. Reading it made me more depressed than I was when I wrote it. But go figure.

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For as long as I can remember, I've loved video games. I think all little boys do- roleplaying, virtual worlds. Make-believe.  
  
But the real world is never that nice to you. If everyone played virtual games, who would support them when they existed in the real world? No one- because everyone would want the happier existence. They would want to live that virtual life. So instead, no one can live it. Everyone has to live in the real world. Whether or not they are suited for it.

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I never liked math and science as much as I liked history... languages... social sciences. But where in Japan is there a place for someone who loves to learn about human nature? Nowhere. Japan is so focused on those linear subjects that they can't see anything else.  
  
So I was forced to conform. Yes- the great Kaiba Seto conforming. But even before then, back when I was Seto-without-a-name in the world, my parents pushed me. They started teaching me numbers before I could read. Computers before I went to school. I don't even remember their faces, but I hate them for pushing me. They had the money- they could have sent me off to study in the West.  
  
In a place where people value more than calculations.

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So I learned. I learned all the math that my head could hold- and I hated it. When Gozaboro pushed a calculus textbook at me for the first time, I was twelve. I had learned algebra, precalculus, all the math that came before it, in a year. A _year_. How was I supposed to remember it all? I barely understood why people were so in love with those infuriating numbers.  
  
Even now, I don't understand.  
  
I was running to keep up before I could stand. Math- science- business- learning- all of these subjects that were supposed to be pursued for pleasure, they got crammed into my brain. I couldn't think. I couldn't learn, and I resented _everything_ I had to fit in to my head next.  
  
All the time, I felt like I was in pain. There was no reason for me to keep on learning things that I didn't believe in. There was no incentive. My head was always hurting, always foggy and dark.  
  
I had to run to keep up- and it always felt like I was drowning. Dying in quicksand. Being pulled apart by all the knowledge in the world that I hated.

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I am intelligent. The most intelligent person in my high school, if that's saying anything. The fastest, smartest person in Domino- I would bet on that. But there are schools of students faster than me in Japan. I am not the smartest person in the world. And the smartest person in the world could not easily do what I have had to do to survive.  
  
So I worked. I put everything else in life aside- all the real life, the people and events. I missed it all. I ignored it all to keep up with an impossible agenda that I continued to set for myself even after my parents and Gozaboro were long cold in the ground. There is some madness in my soul that forces me to take on what no human could possibly do in a lifetime.

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Once I had a dream. Once, I made a beautiful dream of happiness. But never for me- only for others, the ones that I could make my game parks for.  
  
Even that dream died. Just as the reason for me to keep running has died. I am at the top of my game, the top of the world. But I can't stop. Something sickening inside of me has been spawned by this constant race.  
  
So I will keep on running endlessly and blindly until the day I die. Every morning when I wake, after a long night of working and studying and trying to keep pace with myself, that's what I most look forward to.

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**End**

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**A/N:** Oh my. That was somewhat darker than I had expected. Born out of my thoughts on the futility of college if you don't believe that it'll get you anything better than a nine-to-five job and a pocketwatch. Yeah, _go back to school_, self. Yeah, right.

Nah, go to school! It makes you a better person, heh, heh. Review if you feel like it.


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